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8/04/2009

Government spying on computers

This is pretty outrageous. The unwillingness of the government to discuss what happened is also disappointing. The Washington Times has this:

It's always important to read the fine print. Car dealers were reminded of that rule when logging onto the government's "cash for clunkers" Web page. In return for information about the Car Allowance Rebate System, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) required that dealers surrender all privacy on their private computer networks.

NHTSA's warning said: "When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a Federal computer system and is the property of the U.S. Government. Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected and disclosed to authorized CARS, [Department of Transportation] and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign."

When asked if similarly intrusive warnings were posted in the past, NHTSA spokesman Debbie Boykin told us: "I haven't heard of that happening before at all." It was only at the close of business yesterday that Sasha Johnson, press secretary for the Department of Transportation, informed us that the warning had been replaced with a note saying, "We are working to revise the language." Despite repeated requests, no explanation was ever offered for why the original warning was used or why it was taken down.